An assessment of the perceptions of parental practices which place children at-risk for abuse and neglect

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Parental practices play a vital role in children lives. The manner in which parents interact with their children, can promotes and support the physical, emotional, social and intellectual development of a child from infancy to adulthood. It could be describe as the process, whereby children learn to be responsible, and the consequences of their actions with the assistance of their parents. The aim of the study was to assess the perceptions of parental practices, which could place children at risk for abuse and neglect. This study used the quantitative method with a cross-sectional comparative design to examine and compare parental practices of parents, whose children were victims of abuse or neglect across gender, marital status and socio economic status. A sample of 163 participants (87 mothers and 76 fathers), who were either single or married and their socio economic status varied from the lower to the higher income group participated in the study. The participants completed the questionnaire, which was based on the Parental Bonding
Instrument (PBI) and the data was analyzed by means of the Statistical Package in the Science (SPSS version 20). The results suggest that there are no significant differences between parents based on socio-economic status and marital status. However, there were significant differences between mothers‟ and fathers‟ care and overprotection.Furthermore, mothers were identified as being affectionless controlling in their parenting practices (low care and high overprotection) and fathers as affectionately constraining in their parenting practices (high care and high protection). Recommendations are provided for this study.